Chased around Piccadilly Circus
At the top end of Piccadilly near Piccadilly Circus, there is a moneychanger's shop which used to have a 24-hour Western Union terminal. My girlfriend was in Australia at the time of this story, and I'd finished work around 2am and wanted to send her some money urgently to keep her unwholesome landlord away from her door.

Sitting on my bottom for years to work in the picture business had made me fat and lazy. So I withdrew my whole day's allowance from the bank opposite, and waddled over the road, almost breathless having walked from Greek Street, to fill out the forms on the public side of the thick glass window in the moneychanger's shop. At that moment, out of the darkness appeared a skinny little man who looked like he'd not eaten, but he probably owed someone a lot of money for whatever made his skin look like the Moon's crust. My hands being occupied with pen and paper, he saw his moment and, before I could register his nearness, he whipped away my wallet with my girl's safety-money inside. And then he ran. Oh crikey, did he run!

It was like a flipping Keystone Cops film. The scrawny guy sprinted up toward Piccadilly Circus with me following him shouting, "Stop! Thief! That man has stolen my wallet!" It was worse than The Goodies. None of the road maintenance folk around the statue of Eros seemed to care; and I was too slow for the thieving little gazelle.

But a huge, dark figure overtook me: the guy who was behind me in the queue for Western Union. He was tall, wide, and very VERY quick. As the thief approached a bus stop in Regent Street, the gravitational field of the big fellow appeared to suck the crim into his iron grip as the brave stranger fought the little man for my money. Never have I seen a face so frightened as the skinny fellow's mug. He released my wallet exactly as the tall guy, in deep West African tones, instructed him; and I remember telling the snatcher never to come back, because his face was on every CCTV camera around. I may even have said to the criminal, "You've been let go tonight, you thieving bastard; now, fuck off."

The fellow who caught the thief talked to me on the way back to Piccadilly. He wouldn't accept a penny of reward. He told me he was a professional footballer who played "for a team around here", and he was sending some money to Ghana, last-minute, for a family wedding. But in the early hours of that morning, with his exceptional speed, strength and bravery at the service of a stranger, without even being asked, he saved my girlfriend's house and her dignity; and prompted me to stop getting so fat, and start running four miles a day. Brilliant man. I've no idea who he was.
(Sky Channel 760, Fri 10 Feb 2012, 15:52, 7 replies)

I was about to click on I Like This,
but the bit about running 4 miles every day, put me off.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Fri 10 Feb 2012, 16:02, closed)

In the spirit of the QOTW, I have nobly clicked I Like This on your behalf..
(anvil, Fri 10 Feb 2012, 16:08, closed)

How random...

( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Fri 10 Feb 2012, 16:15, closed)

The bit I liked was
The part where the main character got the moral of the story, and stopped being such a fat cunt.
(yourmumonastickwithmintsauce, Fri 10 Feb 2012, 20:05, closed)

In a market place in West Africa, amidst shouts of "stop thief"
I witnessed a sprinting guy attempt to make it through a gauntlet of angry women. Stallholders and customers alike converged on the sorry individual and began beating the shite out of him until he was rescued by a policeman. This is apparently quite a normal occurrence which made me wonder why anyone would be mad enough to try it.
( Infidel , shit and wrong, Fri 10 Feb 2012, 20:38, closed)

How civilised.
I saw a motorbike thief kicked to death by a crowd in Cambodia while the police carefully looked the other way.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Sat 11 Feb 2012, 8:37, closed)

I bet he didn't do it again.

( Infidel , shit and wrong, Sat 11 Feb 2012, 18:41, closed)